


hand in unloveable hand

by Byacolate



Category: Borderlands
Genre: Established Relationship, F/M, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Past Child Abuse, Trust
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-29
Updated: 2015-10-29
Packaged: 2018-04-28 18:09:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,297
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5100563
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Byacolate/pseuds/Byacolate
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"I don't need to marry you to keep you."</p>
            </blockquote>





	hand in unloveable hand

**Author's Note:**

> For the tumblr anon who very kindly gave me the prompt "write a drabble about your otp living their life together, except they don’t get married or have children. not because they can’t, but just because they don’t want to" for Jack/Nisha.
> 
> Referenced in [an amazing comic](http://sanzosin.tumblr.com/post/148747803955/hand-in-unlovable-hand-by-byacolate) by sanzosin!!

She wanders around his office in nothing but her underthings and his jacket, and honestly, it’s a little distracting. But the photo in her grip pierces through whatever ideas his dick might be getting, turns his stomach into a weird cocktail of lust, irritation, anxiety, and it’s really not doing it for him.

 

Glancing up at him from under the dark curtain of her hair, Nisha sets the frame back down on his desk.

 

“So, is it more typical of a bandit or a vault hunter to go around stealing people’s clothes and snooping around their shit?”

 

“I’d chalk it up to human nature, myself.” Her golden eyes flicker down toward the frame, and she makes herself comfortable in his chair. “Cute kid.”

 

“The cutest,” he agrees because, well, _naturally_.

 

She sits there behind his desk practically bare if not for his jacket, analyzing the photo of his daughter, and though he’s fully dressed and masked Jack feels uncomfortably exposed. Nisha leans her elbow on the arm of his chair, cheek on her fist, and sends him an appraising look.

 

“I won’t ask,” she says, just as he opens his mouth to… he doesn’t know. Deflect? Bully her into silence?

 

“Well, good,” he says, folding his arms over his chest. “‘Cause you’re… basically naked, and that’d be a pretty weird conversation to have with a boner.”

 

Her painted lips lift in a smile and she leans over to push the photo face-down on the desk. And probably to show off her awesome boobs. “It would,” Nisha agrees, settling back and drawing a hand down her stomach. “Personally, I think we should stop talking altogether.”

 

“God, you’re smart,” he says, and all that curls in his gut now is arousal and relief as he slinks around the desk to fall to his knees. She digs a heel into his back, and all might as well be forgotten.

 

 

* * *

 

She stretches over him in bed, and she’s heavy with all that muscle. Jack’s half convinced that she only does it to hear him complain, but he probably gives himself away with the arm he slings over her back.

 

Once upon a time, like a million years ago, Moxxi called him clingy - said it with levity as she crawled out of his bed to dress herself, perfectly poised in every way. Nisha sprawls like an octopus tugging and hauling him where she pleases until he’s exactly the way she wants him. She’s a disheveled mess, and he takes a moment to be smug about it.

 

They’re neither of them soft, but Jack’s not so deluded that he can’t admit to a little cuddly indulgence.

 

Nisha has a sexy new scar on her shoulder that he traces with his nails until she props herself up. Sure, she’s got her elbows dug into his chest, but the position also pushes her lower half to his, and it’s kinda making up for the discomfort.

 

“Hey,” she says, her soft mouth dark even without the lipstick. There’s a look in her eye that tells her he probably shouldn’t mention his dick. He kinda wants to anyway. “What’ve you dug up on my past?”

 

“Uhh? Lots?”

 

She shifts, and Jack lets out an involuntary ‘oof’ at the dig of her elbows. “Well, hopefully enough to make this conversation brief. My ma was a piece of shit.” Jack stills his hands where he’d gripped her upper arms, ready to shove her off. He cups her biceps awkwardly instead.

 

“Yeah, I, uh. I knew about. That.”

 

“Thought you might.” She pats his cheek, and for her, the touch is gentle. “I know I don’t gotta tell you that leaves you scarred and twisted in places. For a while you think it’s all you know, until you know better, and even then it sticks.” Her thumb fiddles with a clasp on his mask. He bites his tongue - literally - and she takes it for the permission it is, and unclips it, bit by bit, until false skin makes way for flesh. Jack doesn’t care for it, not even here, not even with her. But it… feels right, in the moment. Vulnerability. Transparency. Shit, he doesn’t know.

 

“Not to critique your pillow talk, buttercup, but I’m not sure I’m into this. Opening up about fucked up parents while we’re naked’s on the wrong side of kinky, even for me.”

 

“Yeah, I’ve got a point to this. Just making sure you could follow along.” Nisha slides herself up then, which does awesome things to his dick that gets both more and less awesome when she moves to straddle his stomach. Her palms on his chest are a welcome relief to the elbows, and she looks really, really good, but he’s supposed to focus on her words. So he squeezes her thighs and follows the gorgeous curve of her neck to her face.

 

“I’m all ears.”

 

She grins, a crooked thing that makes his toes curl in the dark. “Nah, right now you’re seventy percent dick at _least_ , so I’ll make this brief.” With ten dull nails pressing below his collarbone, she tells him, “I can’t do the whole… kid thing. Didn’t really think that’d be an issue until I saw those big blue eyes staring up at me from your desk. I don’t know if you have a wife -”

 

“I don’t. Not... not anymore,” he says, stiffly. It’s not really something he’s allowed anyone to bring up and leave the conversation still breathing. He waits for a ‘good’ or condolences, but all she gives is,

 

“Alright.” And then she spreads her fingers out absentmindedly. “I didn’t really see you as a… kid person. And you don’t want to talk about her, so we won’t. Not now. And if this whole thing goes tits up, maybe never. But Jackie boy…” She dips her head, dark hair a halo, and he can’t think about angels because she’s really, really not. “For the first time in ages, I really don’t want it to. I like you. Whatever this thing is, it’s good. Better’n I thought I’d find in this trash heap corner of the universe. So I wanted to say it now. I just can’t do kids. Wouldn’t know how. Don’t think I ever want to know, and I wouldn’t know how to start wanting.”

 

She’s not a woman of many words, so Jack knows these are important.

 

“And if I asked you to marry me?” he asks, because he hasn’t thought about kids, but he maybe possibly might’ve thought about _that_. What can he say - he's a romantic.

 

“I’d laugh in your face, big guy.”

 

“Fair enough,” he grunts, rolling her over until he’s on top. She smirks up at him like their position hasn’t changed at all, and her hands frame his face.

 

“I’d still want a piece of you, though. I don't need to marry you to keep you.”

 

“Can’t believe you’d turn down sharing assets with easily the richest, most successful man in the galaxy,” he sneers, rolling his hips against hers for a little relief. “That’s just… just stable financial planning, Nisha.”

 

“Not to critique your pillow talk, honey,” Nisha says coolly, and Jack snickers, slipping a hand between her legs.

 

“Yeah, yeah. You just wait. I’m gonna _not_ put a baby in you all night long.”

 

Her thighs clench around him and it’s awesome for two blissful seconds before she hauls him over and right off the bed.

 

Handsome Jack sprawls naked, aroused, and disoriented on the floor, growing more and more irate until in her laughter, she falls over after him.

 

“That,” she groans, “is the least sexy thing you’ve ever said to me.”

 

“Oh yeah? Well then.” He curls one hand around her throat and the other between her thighs. “Let me make it up to you.”

**Author's Note:**

> Title from the first and last song of the Jack/Nisha playlist in my soul, “No Children” (aptly) by The Mountain Goats: _I am drowning; there is no sign of land. You are coming down with me, hand in unlovable hand. And I hope you die. I hope we both die_
> 
>    
> Inquire about fic requests [here!](http://wardencommando.tumblr.com/ask)  
> If you are so inclined, feel free to follow [my Tumblr](http://wardencommando.tumblr.com/).


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